We didn’t have any potatoes. The rain had fallen in patches that year, pressing its fingertips into rows of beans, fields of corn, the tomato plants and the peppers. The layer of soil over the potatoes stayed dry and pale as we stared and waited; little holes appeared in the dirt where the plants tried to suck the moisture out of the ground. In the evening we threaded fistfuls of beans through our fingers to boil on the stove for dinner. Our hands closed around tomatoes in the perfect rounded shape, and the ears of yellow corn folded neatly into our baskets. But late at night my palms began to itch, missing the rough skin of the potatoes. I tiptoed out of the house and around the barn to the spigot, where I filled my bucket until it was almost too heavy to lift. Back and forth from the spigot to the plot I went, dumping water on the soil and turning back for more until my legs stiffened with exhaustion and I stumbled back to bed. The next morning we found the potatoes risen from the ground, floating shriveled and small in their skins, having drowned in the night.
